


A complex emotion

by mikeginsanity (blahblahwahwah)



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied Relationships, Jealousy, Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blahblahwahwah/pseuds/mikeginsanity
Summary: “My dear Ginny! I believe you’re the only woman on this table who hasn't slept with Mike Lawson!”





	A complex emotion

**Author's Note:**

> wow friends, if you are still here and reading. it's been forever. i know. been a rough time. i miss ginny and mike like crazy and i'm still depressed.  
> so i'm just getting back on the writing wagon with this one b4 i die headfirst into finishing the WIPs.  
> be nice...its been a while, 'kay?

It's déjà vu all over again. Wasn't it Yogi Berra who said that? 

In an echo of that Nike party that seemed like a lifetime ago, Mike spots Ginny across a red-carpet, crowded with MLB personalities. This high-profile baseball-centric party hosted by the MLB network is supposed to be in honour of the managers who had retired after the season including Al Luongo, but there’s no doubt that Ginny Baker is the most anticipated and celebrated guest. A thousand camera flashes burst and flicker in her face. It appears that every single photographer is hankering to be graced by a glance from her as she wanders around with the confident, but gentle aura of a goddess. 

Three years at this gig, and Ginny's come a long way. Amelia's waning hold on micromanaging Ginny's life is evident in Ginny's appearance. No longer does he see the forcefully glammed up airbrushed, picture-perfect baseball princess going for the 'ballplayer by day, sexy young thing at night' image that Amelia kept trying to project on her.  

Mike  _ knows _ (because, now he  _ can  _ know) that Ginny dressed herself up. 

Everything about her is effortless, subtle, elegant and so integrally  _ her _ . An outward expression of her attractive, occasionally dorky, incessantly delightful, self-confident personality. From her springy, curly loose open hair with wispy free ringlets tossing around in the directions in which she’s called to look upon, to that close-necked, three-fourth sleeved, knee-length dress that hugs her in all the right places and exposes her beautiful, strong legs; topped up with velvet lips perfectly painted in that seductive hot red shade that contrasts the sedate olive green of the dress. 

 

A frenzied urge takes hold of him.

To run.

To run to her and to run away from her. It has him fuddled to the point where he stays rooted to his spot, gaping at her. Her eyes meet his and her face freezes for a second. Her jaw imperceptibly tics before she tips her chin at him in a curt nod before she glances away with a close-lipped grimace, irate dimples showing, identical to the one she gave him almost two years ago.

 

\--

To date, Mike doesn’t know what came over him. 

He woke up one morning in the aftermath of the trading frenzy of the 2017 season, looked at the calendar, unable to reign his maddening emotions into their respective compartments. He picked up the phone and asked her if she was free for dinner on the night of August 31 st .

Ginny hammered him with question after question about his motives, oblivious it would seem, to the fact that that the date marked a year exactly, since that night outside Boardner’s when Mike almost got traded and almost kissed Ginny. Mike remained elusive on the answers. At the end of what was a perfect, sweet, enjoyable night, he walked her to her new condo, pensive as she yapped on about everything and nothing. 

Finally, she called him out in it.

"What's going on, Old Man?" she asked him, fondly with a slight wary edge to her voice. “This kinda feels like a date.” 

“It kinda could be.” He said, uncertainly. “If – if you want it to be, rook-Ginny.”

Mike will never forget the thrilled look on her face, that hopefulness in her eyes, the way her dimples popped when she grinned at him.

He knew it was love, right then. What he felt for her. He knew it was real. He knew it was bigger and greater than anything he felt for anyone in the past, even Rachel.

She threw her arms around his shoulders and pressed her lips on his surprised mouth. Before he could get a word in, she dragged him inside – made him deliriously happy.

The question of giving up careers on either side, was answered with a “No”. The question of denying their feelings or giving up on the other was also a “No”. They wanted each other, they wanted Baseball and they wanted Baseball for each other as much as they wanted it for themselves. It was what made their connection so deep and so palpable. 

Mike  _ finally  _ learned that it was possible to be on the receiving end of an unselfish love. 

He may have never won a World series or a Championship for that matter, but Ginny was the flood of sunshine that brought joy and solace. His true and only sought after reward.

It gave him the courage to retire, it gave him the courage to move on.

But now, though – it seems like he’s fucked it all up.

\---

They’re asked to take a picture together. 

Mike slips his hand tentatively around her waist, his heart beating a mile a minute. Everything in his body wants to just drag her to him and press his mouth on her cheek and whisper his apologies.

She looks at everyone with that big, radiant smile but all he gets is a cold, polite smirk. Others get her husky voice and horsey laughs, while he gets nothing but silent nods. 

He did this once before with her, when he didn’t know what to make of those overpowering emotions he felt for her. It had him run to Rachel’s house and  set the ball in motion for another series of poor life decisions on his part. 

This time is just worse. 

Now that he knows what it’s like to be with her, be inside her, what she feels like, what she tastes like, what she gives him, what she takes from him – it’s just infinitely worse. 

This week-long radio silence is beyond torture. It fills him with a terrifying uncertainty of their future together. He’s wounded her and there’s nothing that can fix that. He can see it in the way she keeps her shoulders set and her mouth firm whenever their eyes meet, in the way she refuses to look at him after. 

\--

 

It started out as a simple argument that lasted the whole goddamn week.

If he’s being honest, he doesn’t have a clue how the fight started or what it was about.

(Actually, he does have a clue…but he’s not being honest.)

Ginny thought that Mike was having trouble letting go of his role as her catcher and captain. He argued that he was being a good secret mutually-exclusive-fuckbuddy-in-love (because it was just a few months post his retirement from active playing and they weren’t ready to announce it to anyone, yet). 

She thought that him turning up for every home and away game was being too obvious. He contended he was expressing support and encouragement for his team, and if the guys didn’t have any objection to it, she shouldn’t overthink it. 

She thought that him bombarding her with the analysis of each pitch she threw was a cover for ‘backseat catching’ - as she so eloquently put it. He argued that he was just expressing ‘disapproval’ of Livan’s assholery and she should appreciate his input. 

She thought that Livan’s decision to call for a changeup while against the Trevor Davis of the  _ Cardinals _ was a good one _. _ He dissented. And, above all it was a clearly a wrong call because Trevor homered off of it.

She thought Mike was being petulant and resentful. (He was, but he wasn't going to admit that.) The last time she faced off against Davis, Mike was her catcher and he thought throwing in a changeup was a good idea, and she had waved him off. Mike maintained firmly that  _ that _ wasn’t the case - it’s just that he didn’t get why she readily agreed with Livan’s ‘novel’ ideas yet she had always been so inclined to put up a fight out on the diamond when Mike was her catcher.

Somewhere, in the middle of the  _ discussion _ (see: escalating voices), Mike  _ may have _ (see: did) pointed out that she spent too much time horsing around with Livan than actually practicing with him. Mike  _ may have _ (see: did) complained and that her implicit trust in Livan’s impulsive (see: shitty) calls was biased by her  _ friendship _ (see: fraternizing). 

Somehow (and Mike can't quite remember how)  _ that  _ led to a revelation. That Trevor Davis was  _ the _ elusive ballplayer ex-boyfriend for whom Ginny broke her precious code. Ginny blurted out that Livan goaded her to throw the changeup to enact a revenge on Davis for breaking her heart and not deleting her nude selfies off the cloud before he got hacked.

And, Mike who somewhat  _ had it together  _ (see: not really) until then, lost it. 

Mike  _ verbally expressed his bitterness _ (see: yelled) at her that  _ Li-fucking-van  _ was in the know about her history with Davis, and that too, for quite some time now. While Mike, her not-publicly-acknowledged- _ lover _ was oblivious about this information (though he always suspected it). To which Ginny coolly replied that she wasn’t ready to tell him. To which Mike took offence (see: roared).

Before he knew what was happening they were shouting and blaming each other about everything under the sun: from his daddy-issues to her mommy-issues; from him complaining about how annoying it was for him to pick every vestige of cilantro of her food to her accusing him of getting off on making his groupies giggle and blush; from him whining about her hair clogging up his shower drain to her sniping at him for hoarding old socks.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Ginny took charge of the fight (because Baker is nothing if not competitive) with a diatribe on how she tolerated him dating Amelia behind her back; that he was selfishly ready to walk out on the her and the team when he waived his not-trade clause for the Cubs; that he ignored her whenever it suited him, that he left her out on her ass while she was sweating it out alone in rehab when she needed him the most to go ‘work things through’ with his ex-wife. That he only came to Ginny, because things didn’t work out with Rachel. 

(It was as far from the truth as could be. It took him a shitload of serial mistakes to realize that Ginny was the only one for him.

But he was too wrapped up in his injured pride to correct her.) 

To say the fight was epic, would be an understatement. 

Usually when they argue, it quickly leads to make-up sex at best or two hours of not talking to each other at worst. Then, everything resets as though nothing had transpired. 

This time, they were locked in verbal shit-flinging for four hours, screaming, and throwing things at each other (- with no intention of hurting, of course.

(Though, Ginny did get him with the acupressure ball straight between the eyes) 

It ended with Ginny storming out of his house at four a.m. 

Mike didn’t go for her game that day. He was so restless and edgy all day, that he took his anger out on the hapless saleswoman in his dealership for messing up some client’s papers. He heard that she was so off-kilter when she pitched, that Buck pulled her out after the third inning.

  
  


A night apart ought to have done them some good, except it wasn't to happen.

Unfortunately, Blip had invited Mike that evening for cheer-up-drinks with the team the same night. Try as he did, he couldn’t come up with a legitimate excuse to avoid going. When he entered the club, he spotted Ginny sulking in a corner with Duarte hovering by her, trying to get her to cheer up.  

(When he thinks back to it, she automatically looked up in his direction within seconds of him laying eyes on her. It's his sheer stupidity that his head was so far up his ass that he did not stop to take a breath, to recognize this magnetic, unspoken but powerful connect between them, undisturbed even by his retirement.)

The minute Ginny saw him, she grabbed her catcher’s hand and led him to the dance floor. And Mike spent the duration of two whole beers and three double scotches, stewing in spite, unable to look away from her seductively rubbing up all over a seemingly willing Duarte in front of all and sundry, completely unconcerned with the multiple phone cameras flashing around her, recording it for posterity, providing fodder for the gossipers.

In hindsight, that was when he should have stalked out, but... 

( _ But _ -)

Mike who’s never been one to back down from challenging a direct affront to his ego paid her back in kind. He  _ stopped _ ignoring the two blondes orbiting him and dragged them on the dance floor. He flirted shamelessly, (fake) giggled purposefully, upping the ante on his moves.  _ When _ , he felt guilty at seeing the hurt and anxiety in Ginny’s eyes across the floor (despite her best efforts to school her expressions to contrary) he ignored it.

Not the best idea - but hey, at least no one can accuse  _ him _ of being mature.

Nonetheless, in what would be the weirdest, most fucked up game of make-the-other-jealous chicken, it was Mike that lost. 

He stilled mid-twerking, stiffened with fury at the sight of Duarte’s hand on Ginny’s hip. Still consumed with his anger and exacting revenge for his bruised ego, Mike gave up. 

He stalked out and  Ginny followed (as Mike knew that was what she would do).

They went at it again.

In a stinky, dingy alleyway behind the club that smelled like puke, pee and something worse, there was no dirth of shoving and hissing at each other. Enough of “What do you think you’re doing?”s and “What is your problem?”s were exchanged until Mike went for the kill:

“Do me a favour!" Is what Mike spat. "Give me a headsup, before you fuck that Cuban punk?” Is what he threw. “I’ll show myself out of your life!”  Is what he finished with. 

 

The deafening silence of shock that followed was probably what dragged him to his senses. Horror at his own words, yes - but more so at the expression echoed on her lovely face.

Mike can still hear the crunch of her shoes...

Ginny stepped back, stupefied, cupping her mouth, eyes wide and misting. She shook her head at him, sickened, dropping her hand, setting her jaw firm and chin out. She whirled around and disappeared back into the club.  

A force hit his heart, a thousand times larger than all the foul words exchanged between them…

He knew that he’d gone and done it again. 

(She didn’t come over that night. Or the night after. Or the night after that. )

He had something great going for him - and Ginny was infinitely greater than great, she was the one joy of his life - and he found a way to fuck it up.

-

Jealousy, plain and simple.The one thing that Mike could  _ never _ handle with grace.

The reason for their fight.

That old-fashioned, alpha, macho, green-eyed monster that ubiquitously resided in the deep wounds of rejection and betrayal within that Mike had learned to ignore.

He wasn’t oblivious or unprepared for the part of Ginny’s life that was public. Mike who was older, more well-versed with the highs and lows, pros and cons of celebrity and stardom, had long known that he could not have Ginny all to himself. That he’d  _ never _ have her all to himself. In any arena, that she’s smarter, friendlier, more affable, kinder, nicer and cooler than he is. She’s also younger, sexier, hotter, and more popular than he was or ever will be. 

And she was lovable. That made her all the more desirable. 

(And, Mike would know. He spent the greater part of 2016 fruitlessly trying to  _ not _ desire and  _ not _ love her.) 

Everybody wanted a piece of Ginny Baker. To be her friend, to date her, to be a part of her life, to claim her as theirs.  He sure as hell had seen his share of seething quietly in the side-lines, watching her being propositioned by the hottest celebrities and regular nobodies alike.

He wasn't jealous of those people. 

None of them saw the real Ginny. The Ginny he knew: the ballplayer, the woman, the person, the friend. The real Ginny was far from perfect. She was adorable and loveable, but fallibly human. She had a beehive on her head in the morning, she drooled in her sleep (on him). She had a duck walk, her humming was cacophonic, her obsessive speeches on cilantro and/or feminism were insufferable. Mike saw her as she was: with her insecurities, her sacrifice, her struggles, her sufferings, her quirks, her pathological need to perform, her fear of high speeds, her rude tendency to interrupt, her desperate need to belong.  He saw her grow and change, he’s seen her fall and get back up. He’s loved her through it and for it. He likes to believe that’s why Ginny chose him.

No, Mike wasn’t remotely jealous of the multitude of names and no-names who were in love with the idea of Ginny Baker. 

It was her catcher that he resented. 

The fine-lookin’ cocky little shit with his suave words, smooth salsa moves and pretty dimples that rivalled Ginny’s. The man who replaced Mike on the team, and in  _ that box _ (Mike's box), sixty-feet six inches away from her.

The  _ one _ person he wasn’t an asshole to in the clubhouse was Ginny. The only person who could properly own the title as Livan Duarte’s  _ friend _ was Ginny.

_ His _ Ginny.  

And Mike dreaded the friendship more than the flirtation. 

After all, it is friendship that leads to real love. 

He’d know. 

Friendship, was what had him commit for a lifetime with Rachel, and it was a friendship that led Rachel away from him to have an affair  _ that  _ guy. 

Better still, it was friendship that made Ginny see Mike as more than her flawed, tarnished idol and it was friendship that led Mike to fall in love with Ginny Baker. 

The head over heels, ass over tea kettle, hook-fucking-line-and-sinker-ly kind of love.

_ \-- _

She’s been seated at a table that’s on the other side of the room.

_ Go.  _

The thought isn’t new. 

_ Beg. _

It’s been replaying on loop in his brain from the moment she stormed out of his house. 

_ It’s simple. Just apologize.  _

He feels starved, parched and deprived.

He missed her. He started missing her the minute she was gone. He still misses her as when he’s standing right next to her. It feels like a suffocation to  _ not _ have her around. 

He can’t sleep because he’s gotten so used to her wrapping herself around him or tucking herself into him. He hasn’t changed the sheets because his bed smells like her. He picks cilantro off his food for no reason, finds no one to share the herb-less meal with. The cans of grape soda in his fridge aren’t disappearing. His drain is clear from wiry-black hairballs.  It’s been so long since he’s heard her voice, so long since they’ve touched, so long since her mouth was on top of his or her body under him – 

He  _ should _ beg...for her forgiveness. He should whisk her away, get down on his knees, bury his face in her neck or her stomach and plead with her, tell her how stupid he is and how she’s right about everything and to take him back.

_ Just apologize. Beg. Plead. _

The easiest, fucking solution to this whole thing.

Except he just can’t. 

Thing is, he’s done that before.

Beg.

He begged Dave Grissom to let him stay with him and Dave sent him away. Told him he had a family. A family that Mike realized later that he would never belong to because he was Dave’s dirty little secret. 

He begged and pleaded, poured out his heart and soul to Rachel when she left him the first time ad she walked away, taking a piece of him with her. His sincere promises, were dismissed as nothing. 

He may not have expressed it, but he wasn't far from begging to stay with the Padres and Oscar and the higher-ups wanted to push him out. 

Some stupid, cruel, primal part of him reprimands him from turning into to a pathetic, pining, heartbroken lovefool for the second time in his life. It’s a stupid, cruel part of him, alright. Grown from the last vestiges of his conceit.  But, it’s a powerful part and it presents the visual of her rejection to him.

He can’t do it again.

Rejection.

The one thing that Mike fears and hates more than the rift between him and Ginny.

And he fears it, ironically - more than he fears losing her.

\----

As she always gets with social things like this, Ginny’s clearly bored. She’s pouting, hunched over her phone, one leg folded atop the other, with her pretty face resting over a hand, propped up by an elbow on the table.

Gathering whatever’s left of his courage, Mike thinks he can maybe initiate a conversation, maybe  _ try _ to clear the air, maybe even work his way up to an apology. He wipes his sweaty palms over his jacket, and cuts across to the table. Mike curls his hand into a fist, the same hand that’s itching to reach over and pull her by the waist and kiss the back of her neck, like he does when they’re alone and hanging out.

Amelia’s sitting to her left. 

_ Fuck _ .

Rachel - his ex wife, Rachel - is sitting to her right.

_ Fuck, fuck. _

“Mike?” A woman sitting to Rachel’s left the table calls to him.

Ginny’s head snaps up, her eyes locking with his instantly. The surprise and apprehension on her face is evident. Mike does not miss the myriad of emotions flashing for a brief second in her eyes. He sees relief and longing among them, and it gives him hope. Amelia throws a cursory glance at him and looks back to her phone, casting a curious side-glance at Ginny whose face is rapidly turning expressionless like she’s reigning it all in.

Mike nods absently at the person who called him, and then does a double take. 

He knows her. Along with the five other women at the table. 

“Mike?” Diana (he thinks that’s her name) calls his attention again. He didn’t actually date her. They had a one night stand and he forgot to call her the next day.  

“Er…hi, Di-an-a?” Mike winces.

Rachel snorts and smirks but Diana looks peeved. “Dian- _ dra _ !” She corrects him. 

Amelia throws her judgey eye-roll in the mix when she notices the hurt look on Dian- _ dra _ ’s face. 

At least he got some parts of her name right.

“Well, isn’t this interesting?” Emmeline Armstrong glances at Rachel and gives her a bitchy smirk. Maxine Armstrong’s oldest niece happened to be the only woman that Mike had dated before Rachel. He dumped her as soon as Rachel agreed to go out with him. 

“What is?” Bianca (he forgot her last name) frowns. She was the first proper relationship he attempted after Rachel left him. It lasted two weeks. Mike distinctly remembered the reason for their breakup - she grew tired of him calling out Rachel’s name during sex. 

Emmeline glances at Clarice Starling (whose name he’d never forget because apart from the whole reference to  _ Silence of the Lambs _ thing, she was a terrifying woman.). Mike remembers, her to be a sports psychologist, hired by the MLB for vetting players. Clarice narrows her eyes at him pensively and doesn’t say a thing. Clarice also happened to the Emmeline’s friend and he dated her sometime after he dated Bianca. She literally drifted in and out of his life, disappointed at his unwillingness to commit as well as his categorical refusal to try pegging.  

“What is?” Rachel prods when Emmeline peers at every face on the table. 

Emmeline scrutinizes Fiona’s face. Fiona averts her eyes and glances away in the general direction of the room. Fiona was a shy but a brilliant woman, top sports analyst at ESPN. Mike dated her after he broke up with Rachel as well.

“The fact that Mike’s slept with six out of the eight women sitting on this table.” Emmeline says, glancing at Ginny and Amelia. 

Mike sees Clarice’s eyes narrowing at Amelia, specifically on the blush creeping on Amelia’s face. Amelia looks at every one of the women, except Ginny and looks down at her phone. 

“I beg to differ, Em.” Clarice answers in her clipped, slinky voice. “It’s seven.”

Rachel snaps her head at Amelia, her face shadowed with disapproval. She shakes her head at her almost as if to say:  _ not you too. _

He feels like a dick when his eyes swing to Ginny. She swallows hard, and smiles politely with Emmeline’s cackles. Her eyes burn a hole through him,  her lower lip quivers and tips out for a moment, her eyes glisten before she collects herself putting up a perfected poker face.

“Wow, so it is!” Emmeline gushes. She grins at Ginny. “My dear Ginny! I believe you’re the only woman on this table who hasn't slept with Mike Lawson!”

**Author's Note:**

> tbc...


End file.
